For long periods, Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro had downplayed coronavirus as a 'little flu', condemning the hysteria surrounding it and urging people to get back to work to stop an economic crash.
The negligence and arrogance of the country's leader is now proving costly as cases continue to spike at worrying pace. Brazil now has the third-highest number of novel coronavirus cases in the world, according to official figures released Monday.?
With 254,220 confirmed cases, Brazil has now surpassed Britain, Spain and Italy in the past 72 hours on the list of total infections, and is behind only the United States (1.5 million) and Russia (290,000).
Brazil has registered 16,792 Covid-19 deaths, the sixth-highest toll in the world.
But experts believe that the figures could be 15 times higher as the South American nation lacks way behind other countries when it comes to testing its citizens.?
The giant South American country of 210 million people is torn by a political battle over how to respond to the virus. The conflict between nation's top leader Bolsonaro and medical experts has laid bare the disastrous response to the crisis.
Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly compared the virus to a "little flu," and has exposed his country that doesn't do well on health parameters, to an even bigger adversity.?
State and local authorities, however, are largely calling on citizens to stay home and practice social distancing -- backed by the Supreme Court, which gave them the final say in the matter.
Bolsonaro is now seeking his third health minister since the pandemic began.
He fired the first after publicly battling over stay-at-home measures, and the second resigned last week after less than a month on the job, reportedly over the president's insistence on widespread use of the controversial and unproven malaria drug chloroquine to treat the disease.
The country's hospital are overwhelmed with reports saying some cities' hospitals are operating near capacity leading to fears that the growing cases could cripple the system already looking vulnerable.